The Final Battle

There is a reaon why this page is black.  Well, we played last night... and, if you have been following our little tale what happened will astound you.  I'm not joking when I say that everyone except for Castor the Bard died... hacked down in the prime of their life by a bunch of axe wielding improved slinks.   CR wise, I thought the encounter shouldn't have been beyond the group's ability to handle --- it should have been tough, but the near total party wipe surprised me.... and the players as well.   Maybe the problem was just some bad dice rolls on the player's side and some good dice rolls on my side.  I think in a couple of instances the players could have made some better choices.  And a few failed saving throws probably made all of the difference.  And only a couple players could make it -- I think fewer heads around the table on the player's side put the players at a disadvantage since they are tying to multi-task their decision making among multiple characters.

To give a recap: there were 8 improved slinks dressed in splint mail with 4 hit dice and great axes who had been instructed to flank at every opportunity.  They were pretty tough --- 30 hitpoints each, AC18, 1 attack at +5 for 1-12+2 dmg.  There were 6 level 1 warrior guardsmen with crossbows, all of whom died early in the fight and 2 magic users --- one level 6 and 1 level 3. A stinking cloud spell incapacitated Mace and he got flanked by several slinks. It took a long time but they eventually hacked him down. Due to the spell he was unable to counterattack. Wilbered got cornered and hacked down by slinks. Trygvie fought the good fight --- he fired 2 fireballs at 2 different groups of enemies --- wiping 1 group out entirely and severely crippling the second. Kane perhaps qualifies as the "most heroic" in having tumbled into a circle of slinks that were going medieval on Wilbered with their axes and punching and kicking the stuffing out of a couple of them until he, too, was dead.   Castor was able to run away --- the slow and clanking slinks in their splint armor were unable to catch him.

Epilogue:
When Castor finally made it back to town, Bramwald was nearly destroyed.  Sherrif Gurney Dain, the Cleric Mackurian and Speaker Corric Ekko told him that the slinks had gone beserk the night before, setting fires and attacking people.  The slinks were apparently some form of ghoul, and something --- perhaps a spell of some kind --- had disguised them and made them act like compliant servants until they transformed into creatures that acted like ghouls but looked like slinks.  The survivors are all exhausted, having fought slinks most of the night. Terrifyingly, villagers killed by the slinks also became ghouls so many villagers suffered the added horror of being attackedby their own friends and family!  Piles of bodies are being burned everywhere in town.  The Earthsblood fields are completely destroyed--- the slinks set fire to the pumping platforms and the earthsblood is still burning.  The irony of the situation is that the slink owners were probably the first to get killed.   Riga Cornover, the richest woman in town, was seen being devoured by her pet slinks. Mikael Gorchabov was also confirmed killed --- torn limb  from limb by his slink waiters. Blaine Thurgudman, most of the Monitors and Grisson Oyle are missing and presumed dead.

Maybe I misjudged the party strength on this one. Sorry, guys...

I was considering saving the campaign by either a) allowing Mace, Wilbered, Castor and Trygvie to have survived (explained below) or b) letting Castor recruit new party members (i.e.: the players roll up new PCs).  But I decided that I had made a lot of mistakes early on in this game (although it had some good moments) and starting up a new campaign.  After a brief confab with the players, we decided to run something new.   That new campaign is going to be The Shackled City Adventure Path.

Well, I've decided to bag the old campaign so I guess I can tell you what I would have done to ressurect the game.  When Castor ran out of the room, the rest of the party was all in negatives and the room was occupied by enemy forces.  There really was no way for Castor to prevail or save the other PCs so running (or fighting and dying in 2-3 rounds at most) were his only options.

As it turns out the slinks were some sort of form of undead --- so Wilbered could have turned them --- and a few times in the campaign he was about to, but he never did.

I thought I could save the campaign as follows:
A cleric henchman of Dutch would use cure minor wounds spells to stabilize the PCs and you would all be bound and healed to the point that you had a single hitpoint each.  You would have then been sold to a half orc associate of Dutch's who would have begun transporting you another location --- hinting that something very nasty was in store for you.  As players you would have had to figure out how to escape from captivity without weapons, armor, etc.  A few of your magic items might have been taken by/given to members of the slavers caravan --- so those might have been recoverable --- but 90% of your magic would not be there.  When I said, "It will cost you," I meant you would lose most of your magic stuff.  You might have been able to recover that stuff eventually ---